SAP Lumira Version Management
As it is a visualization tool, the need for version management is very critical. A day-long work might get discarded because the result was not as expected, or the previous version was better looking than the newer version. Reverting to older versions manually is a difficult process as changes have to be done in many places like CSS, Scripts, Initial views, etc.…
SAP Lumira documents can be stored to SAP BI repository like any other object in the system. They have Lumx extension and they are typed as “Lumx Document”.
Overview of Terminologies and Options
Central Management Console (CMS) Version
CMS version of the report is the currently active version in the CMS DB / SAP BI repository. When a developer saves the report, CMS version will be generated. In other words, when a user executes the report in Launchpad CMS version will be executed. There will be only one copy of a particular object in CMS and it is called a CMS version. When a developer saves his changes on an existing report that is added to VMS, the current CMS version will be over-written with the new version and version number will be incremented by 1.
Version Management System (VMS) Version
VMS version of the report is the version that is the last checked-in to the version management system. When a new report is added to Version Management System (VMS), it is considered as first check-in and VMS Version 1 and any further check-in will increment VMS version by 1. Unlike CMS, VMS can store multiple versions of the report and this helps us to revert to an earlier version when needed.
Check-In
Check-in is the process of saving the current CMS version as a copy into the VMS. When a change is saved in the CMS, CMS version of the object will be updated. However, VMS version will not change. Performing a check-in will save the current CMS version as the new VMS version. However, version management will retain copies of old VMS versions.
Get Latest Version
This option performs the reverse of check-in. When Get latest version is executed, the latest copy of the VMS version will be used to overwrite the current CMS version. In other words, all changes made to the report will be lost and it will be replaced with the last stable version stored on the VMS.
Create a Copy
Create copy is more like “Branching” done in software development. When creating a copy is performed, another copy of the report is created from the latest VMS version. However, when creating a copy, CMS version number and VMS version numbers won’t be updated in the VMS. The newly created report will not be part of the VMS and “Add to VM” should be performed separately to manage versions of the copied report.
Lock/Unlock
Lock and Unlock helps admins/developers to prevent unwanted check-in to the VMS system. When an object is locked, new check-in or Copy cannot be done. Unlock will enable check-in/ copy options.
Delete
Delete option will remove the report from VMS. CMS version of the report will remain in SAP BI repository and that will not be removed. Removing the object from VMS will remove all VMS versions and CMS version will be retained. Object removed from VMS can be added to VMS again using “Add to VM (Version management)” option.
Let’s see the VMS basic workflow:
The user creates a report and saves it to CMS/SAP BI Repo – Active version of the report is generated.
From Version Management, the object will be added to VMS
A copy of the report will be stored to Version Management and CMS version/VMS version will be set to 1
The user makes some changes to the report and saves it to CMS again
CMS version will be updated; however, the VMS version will remain the same.
Now the developer/admin can check-in the new CMS version to VMS – VMS version will be updated
Now CMS will hold only version 2 (active version), however, VMS will hold version 1 and 2
How we can add SAP Lumira documents to VM?
Adding to Version Management is the first step towards initiating version control. When an object is added to version management, it will store a copy of the current CMS version in the Version Management system. CMS version and VMS version will be set to 1. Once this step is completed, changes to CMS version can be stored as a copy in version management. The first step to add the documents to VM is to go to The Central Management Console (CMC). CMC is a web-based tool to perform day-to-day administrative tasks, like user management, content management, server management. From the left dropdown menu, we choose – Version Management.
When we want to add to version management, we click on the checkbox in front of the name of the document and after that click on Add to VM. As soon it is added, CMS version and VMS version will be set to 1 and multiple versions can be maintained. When we make changes in the report and save it to the BI platform and go back to CMC, this will show an exclamation mark icon under “CMS version”. Check-in will display a prompt to enter a comment. Enter the comment and click “Ok” to save. Once check-in is completed, both the CMS version and the VMS version will be updated in VMS.
Looking into the “History” of the Lumira Document, it will show the list of versions maintained in the version management system along with a comment describing the change.
Reverting to an older version – there can be a need to revert to version 1 as the new version is not looking good (or) has bugs (or) has performance issues. To revert to version 1, select version 1 on “History” and execute “Get Version” option. This will replace CMS version with version 1 from VMS and users launching this application from Launchpad will start seeing the version.
The version management system is a very useful tool. The important thing to know is that it is relevant only for front-end elements and functionalities like CSS, Scripts, Initial views, not for back end stuff.